Episode 2751

- [Lively Music]

- [Narrator] Annette Shrader meets a couple who share a love of gardening and outdoor time. We'll see the backyard retreat they created. Plus, Tammy Algood tours the demonstration beds of this community garden at Vol State in Gallatin. And, Troy Marden showcases some dependable and showy native plants. Come along. [Lively Music] A gorgeous view whether you are inside the house or under the gazebo.

- [Annette] I know when I bought a home and it had some outdoor space along with it, I sat and pondered the possibilities of garden beds and gathering spots. Today, we're visiting a couple in Memphis that did that too and they have created their own little paradise. Well Steve there's an old adage that says, "If you fail to plan, then you've planned to fail." Obviously, I believe that you've planned, didn't you?

- There is a lot of planning that has gone into the backyard here.

- Well, and especially with the water feature, which I know you have designed but had someone come in professionally to install your initial plans.

- [Steve] That's right. When we first moved in, we had a couple come over and celebrate with us when we got the keys to the house and both of us kind of noticed that since the yard sloped towards the house from the back that would make a perfect place for a little bit of water to be trickling down through the backyard.

- [Annette] Yeah, I would think I might be in Pigeon Forge right here.

- [Steve] Yeah there you go and seventeen years later and this is what we came up with. So we've been working on this a little bit piecemeal, get one little piece of it installed and paid off and when we'd get enough money we would add another feature. The feature itself is about a hundred and fifty feet long. There are two pumps because of the grade level change from the bottom to the top so that we can get enough water flowing through here.

- [Annette] Mhmm

- [Steve] And the water comes down, hits the pump in the middle of the yard, recirculates back up through a buried pipe here, and as you can see without any chemicals, just with the plants and the water, it's absolutely crystal clear year-round.

- [Annette] Well Steve, you made a direction for the water then you had to add the banks with the rocks so tell us about that process and what you used.

- [Steve] Well, the outside of the water feature itself is Arkansas Field Stone, a lot of separate pieces and different sizes and shapes. Inside, we have some river rock that looks more natural because it's got rounded edges on it as if the water's been running over it for many years. Knowing that we were gonna put paths in, we went and found some spare pieces of stone, Pennsylvania Blue Stone, as bridges and two places to allow you to actually cross over the creeks. And then we started with a pathway that works all the way from the house up to the gazebo and that took us probably all summer. We worked together, bringing in about a ton of rock at a time and tried to fit individual pieces together,

- It's like a puzzle! it's just like it's a really big jigsaw puzzle.

- [Annette] It's a puzzle that's not precut.

- [Steve] That's right

- We had to put it together.

- with about three tons and you would make ten or fifteen feet worth of progress and you'd have to move most of the stone and then you would make ten or fifteen feet of progress then move all the remaining stone so it took up pretty much the entire summer.

- [Annette] Well now in between these paths I see lots of different plants.

- Yes ma'am.

- And Missy I believe that you are a plants person?

- I really like plants. I like digging in the dirt. I like being outside.

- Okay.

- I work in front of a computer most days and so really the weekends are for being outside and enjoying the space.

- [Annette] When I look out, Steve, I see that you were given a great gift when you bought this property and moved in.

- [Steve] We were, there are four giant oak trees on the property, Pin Oak and Willow Oak, and it's been estimated that they're between eighty and a hundred years old and we had the lower limbs cut off to raise the canopy to allow us to have a lot of shade without feeling quite so closed in from trees through this part.

- [Annette] Very dappled.

- [Steve] That's exactly right and that helps the plants, they get a little bit of sunlight but not too much. And then over the years, we infilled with some of the ornamental type trees such as The Yoshino Cherry and Chinese Fringe Tree, Bloodgood Japanese Maple Trees and a few Dogwoods around, they also love the shade.

- [Annette] Yeah.

- [Steve] And we still have some areas that have full sunlight and you know that's an important part of planning the garden, right, is knowing where you have sunlight, where you have shade and getting the right plant in the right place and our yard has changed over the years.

- [Annette] Well and it's gonna continue to change.

- [Steve] Continue to evolve and that's one of the things that we do annually is move plants that don't look like they're performing very well because they need more shade or they need more sun.

- [Annette] Right well you've created multiple layers of color and all the way from the top to the bottom and it's very effective.

- That's right, the varying of leaf color, the varying of leaf sizes and textures, the heights of the plants,

- Right. blooming in different seasons, all of those things have kind of figured into the plan for the yard.

- Well planned.

- Well planned.

- We just visited with Steve and he was the man that had a plan for the water and I know with plants we have to plan also so Missy what was your desire in the very beginning and where did you start?

- We inherited quite a few Hosta when we moved into this house. Because of the shade I'd not been able to grow Hosta previously so I became enraptured and took those Hosta and expanded on them. We especially like the reds of the Japanese Maples so they were some of our earlier plantings and then as the shade and the sun has changed, the plants have changed as well.

- [Annette] And where are you getting like your spring color in your plants?

- [Missy] We have some great Azaleas, some Native Azaleas, that are very showy. The Viburnums are lovely in the early spring. This time of year, the Lilies are out, the late blooming Azaleas are out, the Hydrangeas are just fantastic.

- [Annette] Well and then you also, are you choosing the water plants also?

- [Missy] Water plants do not die. So once you buy them, they overwinter and they come back the next year and they multiply so we have had great success with the water plants.

- [Annette] Now that's what I was gonna ask you, in an expansive landscape like this, what are your successes and failures? Are there plants that you really wanted to grow here but you couldn't or has it been pretty good?

- [Missy] Oh absolutely and it changes all the time. So we actually just lost a Japanese Maple last year there's no real rhyme or reason for it. It was healthy and that happens. So then you have to reconfigure the beds and see what works.

- [Annette] Yeah that's the thing about gardens, we all know, that they're gonna change, they're never static and we need to, shall we say, not to be funny, but go with the flow. If you lose something you gotta have a-

- Well there's always plenty of replacements.

- There are. And I know that when I look around in your garden there has to be a favorite place to sit and why?

- [Missy] Well we were in my favorite place. We built a sun room so we can enjoy from the house but this is a completely different vantage point. We love having company and drinks and just enjoying friends in this space after a really long day in the yard this is where we enjoy the evening. So I'm very fond-

- [Annette] And you know as I sit here with you I can close my eyes, I can hear that water but I also know because I drove here by car that within a half of a mile there is a very busy Memphis street I don't hear it and therefore you are in a sort of secluded like you're on a balcony in the mountains aren't you?

- [Missy] This is my perfect place.

- [Annette] You know it's not easy to create so many peaceful spaces within the whole of the garden and you all have done such a good job and how did you do all of this?

- Well you know when we first started, it was a way for the two of us to have time together to spend together and we'd work out here together and it led us to design it for places for us to enjoy when we weren't working.

- Yeah.

- That led to the gazebo, led to the area here with the bench that came from her grandparents,

- Oh how wonderful.

- a very important bench for her father, it was in their family home and we brought it here. So we built this backyard for us. We plan on retiring here, we're gonna live here our lives, we've done this for ourselves, even changed the back of the home to have picture windows so that everywhere we are in the house we have the ability to be part of the garden.

- [Annette] I sure can appreciate all the work this took over the years and all the plant purchases and time in the dirt. Thank you so much for sharing it.

- Well I am always on the lookout for new places to buy great plants and today we're gonna showcase a few wonderful natives with Matt Pilcher, the owner and proprietor of the newly opened Thrive Garden Center in Kingston Springs, Tennessee. So Matt's been a friend for a number of years and I was so excited to hear that his dream was coming true to open a new place and native heavy but not exclusively native.

- That's right.

- So tell us a little bit about what we have here in front of us.

- [Matt] Well a few of my favorites, I'll start with the Red Buckeye. This is one of my absolute favorite natives. It's one of the first things I see hummingbirds on in the spring,

- Right. and as they age and get some size to them they can get a fairly dense canopy, which is great in the fall, early fall, they'll go a brilliant shade of yellow before they shed their leaves for winter. So I get at least two seasons of interest out of this amazing, small tree.

- [Troy] Right, well and you mentioned the hummingbirds and it's actually this plant that the scouts follow from the Gulf Coast north,

- That's right. one of several but this one and a few others. So as the Red Buckeyes come into bloom, which mine started a few days ago, and within twenty-four hours, I had my first hummingbird.

- [Matt] I've seen our first on this one this year.

- [Troy] So and then down here to the front we have one of my favorite native trees, and kind of hard to find, so I'm glad to know that somebody is carrying it but this is Big Leaf Magnolia.

- That's right. They are one of the largest leaves you'll find around here. They almost look completely tropical but my favorite is when they start to bloom sometimes it, once they've got some size, they're a little hard to find the blooms but you can always smell them. You may not always see it but you'll smell it from fifty feet away.

- [Troy] Yeah and kind of a lemony smell. And a flower almost like our Southern Magnolia, big white bloom with a little red mark in the center but incredible tree and amazing foliage, one of the largest leafed, deciduous trees in the United States even. What about this bright yellow plant that's down in front of us?

- So this is a Florida Lycium, this particular one is Florida Sunshine and what makes it really special is the bright green leaves that it holds all year round. Will it occasionally have a very hard winter and it'll knock a few leaves off, but as a general rule this plant will grow and as long as it's not in full sun, it's a very happy plant and really easy to grow.

- [Troy] Right so good morning sun, dappled shade, bright dappled shade all day and as you mentioned it keeps its leaves year round, which there aren't a lot of natives that we think of as good kind of evergreen foundation plants or accent plants and this is one of them. Not nearly as finicky as like a Rhododendron and those kinds of things.

- That's right. So and then next to it another Buckeye maybe?

- [Matt] It is. Yep that's our native Bottlebrush Buckeye. It's a fantastic plant, usually a little hard to grow in containers so they tend to be on the small side but once you get it in the ground, where it's happy, it takes off like a rocket and makes a gorgeous large shrub. Midsummer when everything else is taking a break because of the heat, it sends up these huge spikes of white flowers and then again we get a great fall show from that plant too.

- [Troy] And finally, back here right in front of me, one of our classic native trees, the White Dogwood,

- That's right. also comes in pink and kind of a reddish, deeper pink.

- This one is Cherokee Princess, bred to be a little more anthracnose and powdery mildew resistant,

- Right. but otherwise exactly the same as what you'd find in the woods in middle Tennessee. I had a really great friend once say, "You don't have a southern garden without a Dogwood or a Magnolia."

- [Troy] I would agree with that. Well in addition to a really nice selection of trees and shrubs, also some great native and non-native perennials but native in particular and one of my favorites for shade, it's blooming right now as you drive up and down the roadsides, and even look off into the woods here, Blue Phlox.

- [Matt] Phlox divaricata, it's an easy easy Phlox to grow in the shade. It's a real dependendable bloomer. And the fragrance is to die for, I love the way they smell.

- [Troy] And where it's happy, it will kind of politely reseed itself and you'll have more

- Absolutely. in coming years. So that's a really great one. Another shade plant, I'll switch out here, is, are these Heuchera and Tiarella and then some of the hybrids that Heucherellas?

- [Matt] That's right, this happens to be one of those. This one's called Hopscotch and it's a fantastic color in the shade. It's hard to find a lot of foliar color in the shade because most things out there are just green,

- [Troy] Right.

- [Matt] but this one's great and the bloom, when they bloom late spring they just cover themselves in white stalks of flowers. It's really pretty.

- [Troy] So if you're growing Hostas and Hellebores and you want some native things to mix in, that Phlox we just looked at or these Heucherellas, Heucheras and Tiarellas, all of those will work. Another brightly colored foliage plant, this little lady here,

- That's right. Tradescantia 'Sweet Kate'.

- This is one of the ones I've had in almost every shade garden I've ever grown. That shot of color is worth the plant's location every single time. And then we get the dark purple like Concord grape flowers on top that the plant contrasts with itself. You just can't beat.

- Yeah.

- [Troy] It is a great shade plant and that is where I grow it mostly but I'll also mention that I have one spot in my garden where I get a lot of drainage and it stays pretty wet, absolutely full sun and as long as it's moist at the roots, it'll do full sun equally as well as shade so you have multiple choices with one plant, with this one. And then one of my very favorite native perennials for full blistering sun in a dry spot where you can't get anything else to grow.

- Absolutely, Rudbeckia Maxima. It's one of my favorites too, I don't often get a chance to use it because it gets so big but where you've got some space and you need a flower that's over your head, this is a phenomenal choice. I've always loved the blue foliage too.

- [Troy] Yeah it's great foliage, big wide clumps, I have a mature clump in my garden, probably three feet wide at the base, and it does grow tall but I will mention this also, it grows straight up and it stands straight up. So it doesn't take up six or eight feet of width like a shrub does.

- That's right. What you get at the base is about a two to three foot mound of foliage and then the flowering stalks with bright yellow daisies and black centers come up on a six foot stem, straight up out of the middle of the plant, so don't be afraid of this just because it gets tall.

- Absolutely. You know we can always use height in the garden no matter how big or small your beds are you can always use something that grows upright as long as it stays upright and doesn't sprawl over everything else. Another real showstopper and again, not native, but really spectacular is this Golden Dawn Redwood.

- [Matt] Yes. I love this tree. I have one I planted about fourteen years ago and right now it's about twenty-five, twenty-six feet tall and it's just this beacon of yellow in the landscape.

- Right.

- It's absolutely stunning, it looks like it's been plugged into the wall.

- [Troy] Mhmm yeah really really and it stays brightly colored

- It does. like this through the summer, it's not one of those things that leafs out gold and then turns green in the heat.

- No it's very dependable.

- And in fact, sometimes I think in the heat they're even more gold than they are when they leaf out. Really good, this is going to be a big tree. So don't plant this right up next to the house. This is a tree for out in the yard.

- [Matt] That's right.

- [Troy] Well, I always love finding a new place to shop where I can find interesting, unusual plants. Matt, I wish you terrific success in your new venture.

- [Matt] Thank you, Troy.

- Today we are highlighting something a little bit unique. We've got a school partnering with the school to make a garden a school. And I see some honeysuckle vine here that we're going to be accenting so let me head over this direction and talk to Joanne Brown, who is the Master Gardener that is spear heading this entire project here at Vol State. So Joanne, tell us about this gorgeous arbor and your garden.

- We have planted Major Wheeler Honeysuckle. It is a native, a hybrid of a native honeysuckle, in order to have the red color. Hummingbirds love this particular vine and we have also some Blue Plumbago in there so we have the school colors on the arbor with the red, white, and blue.

- So the pioneers are represented when you first come into the garden.

- Exactly.

- That's great. So Joanne tell us about this, let's walk through the garden here because this is a pretty substantial project that

- It is.

- you've got going on here.

- [Joanne] We have roughly a third of an acre garden area here. We mainly use it for demonstrations for what's the best plants to grow for this area because of the different conditions that we have than most people in other parts of Tennessee.

- [Tammy] Right. You've got a lot of raised beds here. Was this done on purpose?

- We did do this on purpose and this particular one we planted a lot of lavender in, we do have some other herbs in this one, but we planted because lavender is such a difficult plant to grow in Tennessee. We have found that there are some that are better, the Phenomenal Brand,

- Yes. Grosso is good, Munstead is good, and so is the Intermedia and we do have a Provence.

- [Tammy] Okay so Joanne obviously you've got areas of the garden that are not raised beds, so tell us about this area.

- This is our cutting garden. We originally had it sectioned off for individual colors but we know that that doesn't really happen when plants like to reseed themselves, so we do try to incorporate a lot of natives in here.

- [Tammy] Okay so in this garden, do you have a regular force that comes out on a weekly basis? How do you manage this?

- [Joanne] On a weekly basis, there are usually two, maybe four of us that come. We also have a work day on the third Saturday of every month where we hope to get students and faculty involved and the community.

- Tell me about what you've got going on here. This is great.

- We've got two kinds of blackberries. They're both from the University of Arkansas. Brands we have the 'Triple Crown' and the 'Prime Ark Freedom'. Myself, I like the 'Prime Ark Freedom'.

- [Tammy] And you've got blueberries as well?

- We have two kinds of blueberries and these are Highbush and Rabbit Eye which are both recommended for our area.

- And what do you do with the fruit that you harvest from your garden?

- At the present time, the birds get the majority of it and a local groundhog.

- [Tammy] There's nothing wrong with feeding the wildlife. It has to eat too.

- [Joanne] That's true.

- [Tammy] Joanne tell us about this fence because this has significance.

- [Joanne] The fence was an original fence on the property before it became a college campus.

- So y'all just turned it into a split rail thing that's kind of honors the place that it used to be.

- Yes.

- And you got elderberries here. This is great. You don't see those just everywhere.

- [Joanne] And they've been trimmed down because we had a bad freeze so they're revamping but we're hoping to get some flowers on them next year and some berries.

- [Tammy] That's great. So in addition to your other fruit, you've also got raspberries so you've just about got berries covered. Tell us about these.

- [Joanne] These raspberries, we have four different kinds, and these are the Heritage Raspberry, a great raspberry for our area that just really does well, performs well, and gives us a lot of good berries.

- So for a home owner that would be a good selection for them? And obviously you've got it trained here, is that what you recommend as far as harvesting it?

- [Joanne] I recommend training it because it does want to flop and it does want to, you know, spread profusely out on the ground so to get good clean berries you want to train it.

- [Tammy] And it probably helps with your disease control as well with air flow in the berries. Do y'all use any sprays or anything on this garden?

- [Joanne] We do not. We don't use any sprays at the present time and we have been very fortunate not to have too many diseases.

- [Tammy] Right so this is a teaching garden so you've got good signage here. Tell us about those.

- We really want people to understand what varieties we're growing and what is a good variety when they come through not just us telling them. So they can come through at any time, see the sign, and say, "Oh I love these raspberries. This is a Heritage."

- Right and you're also using a teaching tool with pollinators.

- Pollinators. We try to encourage pollinators for all of the garden but especially the fruit because they're all endangered and we need them so we try to encourage any and all that we can.

- What's nice is that your signage is consistent throughout the whole garden so they just know to look for the blue and white signs.

- Blue and white signs. Another part of the school's colors.

- Tell us about these sweet potatoes. It looks like a great crop.

- These are Beauregard's Sweet Potatoes. We got the slips from a gentleman who works here and grows them himself and he told us, he has been teaching us how to grow them and has explained to us the best ways to grow them. They need a lot of lime,

- Right but he said if you can see where the plant comes up, if it's bulging then you know that it's making potatoes and you wanna leave them as long as possible.

- Your inclination is "Well I have to pull it up to see how much-" but this way you can look at it without having to pull up the plant. I love these peppers, tell me about them.

- [Joanne] These are Habanadas. In the gardens, we like to try some new varieties. These are not a hot pepper, these are a sweet Habanero pepper that we have just tried this year. It seems to be doing very well in the gardens.

- It seems strange to say a sweet Habanero pepper. [Both Laughing] Okay and then this, this is one of my favorite things. I've grown this before, tell me about this spinach.

- This is Malabar Spinach. It loves the heat and does very well here in Tennessee. It's a little more succulent than most spinaches but it does exactly the same. Gives you wonderful, beautiful colors in your garden and adds so much to the garden. I can't recommend it enough.

- And it's delicious.

- It is. Raw or cooked.

- Okay let's move on to tomatoes because everybody loves tomatoes. Tell us what kinds you've got here.

- These are Damsel and this was our first year for that particular tomato. It's a big heavy grower and it's got quite a few tomatoes on it, in spite of the local groundhog who has eaten quite a few of them. But we still have enough tomatoes for him and us.

- And you've got a good substantial cage, is that out of concrete wire?

- [Joanne] It is.

- [Tammy] I love to make tomato cages out of that, it just holds it up better. So yeah this is pretty nice. And you got, I love the basil growing right next to it.

- The basil, two kinds of basil actually, this is a Cardinal Basil, which is another pretty plant with beautiful leaves, a wonderful flavor, and of course the Large Leaf Italian Basil.

- [Tammy] Yeah I really like to cut basil and just put it in my kitchen in a vase, that way I'm ready to use it and it smells so good in the kitchen, doesn't it?

- It does.

- Joanne, thank you for this. This is a lovely teaching example of a garden. It's exactly the way we want it to look and you've got the teaching points down perfectly. Thank you for the effort and the time that's gone into this garden. It's lovely.

- [Joanne] Thank you. [Lively Music]

- [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips, and garden projects, visit our website at VolunteerGardener.org or on YouTube at the VolunteerGardener channel and like us on Facebook.